Netherlands · Early retireeSabbatical in the Netherlands as an early retiree
The Netherlands is a comfortable place to stop working early: excellent healthcare, cycling infrastructure, and English everywhere. It is also one of the few countries that taxes wealth every year whether or not you touch it. A retirement plan that ignores Box 3 is a plan with a hole in it.
You live in the Netherlands, or are a returning Dutch national, and your portfolio is large enough that work is optional. You want to know what the annual tax drag is, what healthcare costs without an employer, and how to structure withdrawals.
Box 3 is your largest fixed cost
Above €59,357 per person (€118,714 for fiscal partners) the Netherlands taxes a deemed return on your assets at 36%: 1.28% on savings and 6.00% on investments for 2026, with debts deductible at 2.70%. On a €600,000 index-fund portfolio that is roughly €12,000 a year, due whether the portfolio rose or fell. The long-promised move to taxing actual returns has been delayed again, and the 2026 rates were adopted in November 2025. Two consequences for a retiree: your withdrawal rate has to cover the tax as well as your spending, and the mix between savings and investments changes the bill, since cash is deemed to earn far less.
Healthcare without an employer
Basisverzekering is mandatory and cannot lapse: €145 to 160 a month in 2026 at the standard deductible, less if you raise the deductible to the maximum. Zorgtoeslag, the healthcare allowance, is worth up to €129 a month, but the asset test of €146,011 for a single person disqualifies most people with a retirement portfolio, regardless of how low their income is. Budget the full premium. Long-term care premiums (Wlz) are collected through income tax, so a low-income year keeps them low.
A withdrawal plan that survives the tax
Because Box 3 taxes the balance, not the withdrawal, the usual tax-efficiency tricks do not apply. What does help: keep one to two years of spending in savings (deemed 1.28% rather than 6%), draw from that, and top it up annually from investments. Time large sales for the second half of the year, after the 1 January snapshot has already been taken on the old balance. And run the calculator with Box 3 added to monthly expenses; on a large portfolio it can be the difference between an indefinite runway and a finite one.
If you are coming from abroad
EU citizens register at the gemeente and are done. Others need a residence permit; the self-employed permit requires at least €1,767 a month in gross profit (2026 IND figure) and costs €423, and US citizens have the DAFT treaty route. Dutch tax residency is a facts-and-circumstances test, not a day count: rent a home here and live in it, and you are resident from the start, which brings Box 3 with it. Read the full Netherlands guide for the housing reality, which is the actual obstacle.
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